Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 -- 1893) was a Russian
composer whose works included symphonies, concertos,
operas, ballets, chamber music, and a choral setting of
the Russian Orthodox Divine Liturgy. Some of these are
among the most popular theatrical music in the
classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer
whose music made a lasting impression internationally,
which he bolstered with appearances as a guest
conductor later in his career in Europe and the United
States. One of these ap...(+)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 -- 1893) was a Russian
composer whose works included symphonies, concertos,
operas, ballets, chamber music, and a choral setting of
the Russian Orthodox Divine Liturgy. Some of these are
among the most popular theatrical music in the
classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer
whose music made a lasting impression internationally,
which he bolstered with appearances as a guest
conductor later in his career in Europe and the United
States. One of these appearances was at the inaugural
concert of Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1891.
Tchaikovsky was honored in 1884 by Emperor Alexander
III, and awarded a lifetime pension in the late
1880s.
Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated
for a career as a civil servant. There was scant
opportunity for a musical career in Russia at that
time, and no system of public music education. When an
opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the
nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he
graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching
he received there set him apart from composers of the
contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the
Russian composers of The Five, with whom his
professional relationship was mixed. Tchaikovsky's
training set him on a path to reconcile what he had
learned with the native musical practices to which he
had been exposed from childhood. From this
reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably
Russian style—a task that did not prove easy. The
principles that governed melody, harmony and other
fundamentals of Russian music ran completely counter to
those that governed Western European music; this seemed
to defeat the potential for using Russian music in
large-scale Western composition or from forming a
composite style, and it caused personal antipathies
that dented Tchaikovsky's self-confidence. Russian
culture exhibited a split personality, with its native
and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly
since the time of Peter the Great, and this resulted in
uncertainty among the intelligentsia of the country's
national identity.
Tchaikovsky's Album for the Young (Opus 39) is a
collection of 24 short songs that vary in meter, tempo,
style, and harmonic structure.Inspired by Robert
Schumann's children's works like Kinderszenen and Album
fur die Jugend, Tchaikovsky, dissatisfied with the
quality of children's music and lack thereof, composed
these piano works in 1878, hoping to improve piano
literature for children. These pieces are very much
adult-like. Tchaikovsky masterfully demonstrates an
adult understanding of childhood adolescence and
innocence. Though these scores were dedicated to his
seven year old nephew, Vladimir Davidoff, these pieces
are certainly not for beginners.
Although these pieces were originally written for
Piano, I created this arrangement of Sweet Dreams
(Сладкая
греза) for String Quintet
(3 Violins, Viola & Cello).
